Mini-Mentors – click to enlarge

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school.

This Cookbook will focus on the Mini-Mentor project that Judith ran with some of her P7 class pupils.

After Judith had received her Glow Mentor training her class and the other P7 class were using Glow regularly. Her headteacher wanted Judith to spread this use to all pupils of P3 and above in the school. This would involve giving out all usernames and passwords and making sure they were using Glow as much as they could be. Judith was given a day out of class to kick this off but as she was planning for it she quickly realised that it was going to take much longer than that. By this point Judith’s class had been making good use of Glow for some time and she thought it would be a good idea for some of them to come and help her out. She gave them the title of Mini-Mentors which made them feel really important. She also made them very official-looking badges and other accessories for their role.

Reactions from the Mini-Mentors – click to enlarge

The pupils were able to help her troubleshoot getting the other pupils logged into Glow and help them set up their new passwords. Judith feels there is no way in that day that she would have been able to get around all of the classes without the help of her Mini-Mentors.

Now, if any teachers are needing any help with Glow in their class the Mini-Mentors are called upon to go and help with anything they’re asked to do. They’ve done short presentations to classes about how to do certain things in Glow. For example, how to add Vokis to their My Glow pages. Judith feels that her P7 pupils have grown in confidence as they recognise the level of their own skills in Glow and in being able to share that knowledge with others.

Dana P7

P7 Pupil Dana explains the project:

Mini-Mentors is a group that Miss Lennox set up and we help the school with Glow things like surveys and stuff. We went down to the P5’s and we showed them how to do a survey. We got them to do it on a computer. A week after that we got them to do Vokis and put them onto their pages. I think they enjoyed the Vokis the best though!

Mini-Mentors News

Judith set up a page for the Mini-Mentors in the P7 Glow Group to allow them to share news, ad.vice and general discussions with each other.

The Mini-Mentor Page of the P7 Glow Group (0:51)
Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

Ingredients

What did Judith need to do to set up the Mini-Mentor Project?

• Set up a P7 class Glow Group and have her pupils familiar with using Glow.
• Create a Mini-Mentors page within the class Glow Group.
• Select pupils from her P7 class to become Mini-Mentors.
• Enable these pupils to assist her to get the other pupils in the school onto Glow.
• Encourage these pupils to help other pupils and teachers across the school by delivering various sessions when called upon.
• The Mini-Mentors also help out by answering questions from other pupils within their class

Recipe

The Mini-Mentor project at Coylton Primary School involved practical aspects of helping with the other pupils and delivering sessions to the other classes. As such there isn’t really How-To videos using Glow which would cover this. Instead, I have included some videos below about setting up the Mini-Mentors page in the P7 Glow Group. The first two videos comprise a tour of the P7 Glow Group to set the project in the context of what the class were already doing in Glow.

Tour of the Primary 7 Glow Group – Part 1 (3:34)
Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

Tour of the Primary 7 Glow Group – Part 2 (3:02)
Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

Adding an image to a text editor web part (3:53)
Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

Adding text to a text editor web part (2:28)
Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

Creating a new News web part (2:31)
Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

Creating a new Discussion web part (2:26)
Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

Impact

Judith speaks about her P7 Mini-Mentors (1:53)
Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

Judith talks about the impact she thinks the Mini-Mentor project has had on her P7 pupils:

I think definitely, for some of them, they would never have dreamed of standing up in front of another class to explain how to do something. I think they also didn’t  realise that they were already very good at using Glow, that they took those skills for granted that they didn’t realise they had. It has made them think more carefully about what they’re doing because they’re having to explain it to someone else. I think there’s a definite confidence boost for a lot of them but also just recognising the skills that they already had.

Dana on Mini-Mentors (0:48)
Mini-Mentors project at Coylton Primary

Dana speaks further about what she enjoyed about being a Mini-Mentor:

I found it quite fun because you were with all your friends. I was quite nervous though … I liked answering all the questions because they were quite good questions.

The Topic Evaluation

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school. When it came to their topic work on Earth and Space, the P7 pupils at Coylton Primary School had lots of ideas about what they would like to learn about. Judith incorporated all of these ideas into the Glow Group she put together for the topic.

Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 1 (3:40)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 2 (2:45)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

Introduction to the topic evaluation – click to enlarge

This fifth Cookbook on Judith’s Earth and Space Glow Group will focus on the use made of a survey web part in the Glow Group to evaluate the topic through giving the pupils an opportunity to express their opinions. Four further Cookbooks will look at reusing a Glow Group through a template; the use made of embedded YouTube and TeacherTube videos within the Glow Group; the use made of a wiki for pupil project work and lastly on the use of Picture Library web parts to showcase pupil work.

You will find links to the other Cookbooks on Coylton Primary’s Earth and Space Topic Glow Group below as and when they are written:

• Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic
• Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary
• Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary
• Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries

Using the Topic Evaluation – click to enlarge

Judith used a survey with the class at the end of the topic to ask them what they thought about it. It was the first time this class had used a survey and they really enjoyed this and responded well to it. They gave very full answers where they were given an opportunity to respond about what they wanted. Judith was quite surprised at the fact that they had really enjoyed things that she thought they wouldn’t have been as interested in. She was also surprised that aspects that she thought they would all love were not necessarily enjoyed equally by all pupils.

Using the survey was obviously a very valuable tool to aid Judith in her planning, both in further work with this particular class and in running the Earth and Space Topic with the next class. Consulting the pupils, through using the survey, gave them an opportunity to be involved in constructive dialogue about their own learning, an opportunity for Pupil Voice.

Ingredients

What did Judith need to do to be able to set up the Topic Evaluation in her Glow Group?

• Set up a sub-group of her P7 Glow Group for her Earth and Space Topic.
• Set the pupils up with Contributor permission of the Glow Group.
• Create a Topic Evaluation Page.
• Add a text editor web part with instructions about the survey.
• Create a Voki to introduce the survey and make the page more attractive.
• Create a survey to use for the Topic Evaluation.
• Add the survey to the Topic Evaluation page of the Glow Group.

Recipe

The following videos will demonstrate how you can recreate the same steps Judith took to set up the Topic Evaluation Survey:

How to create a survey – Part 1 (4:12)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

How to create a survey – Part 2 (5:03)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

How to add a survey to the page in your Glow Group (1:32)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

How to edit the toolbar of a survey and how pupils will respond (2:50)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

How to change the display settings of your survey (2:25)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

Impact

Judith Lennox

Judith explains how the pupils were “hooked-in” to Glow (0:29)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

Judith speaks about evaluating the topic through Glow (0:55)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

It’s good at a glance. It was interesting to see that some of the things I had assumed they had really liked, only some of them had enjoyed. Also, some things I had thought maybe weren’t as good, they had enjoyed much more than I had thought.

It certainly came across that they had really enjoyed using Glow for their topic.

Their enjoyment was really heightened and certainly their enthusiasm was caught.

Brandon on why he likes Glow (0:29)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

Brandon and Dana

Dana on why she likes Glow (0:23)
Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

These additional links below are to Cookbooks which also demonstrate the use of the survey web part:

Embedding Glow in daily learning and teaching

Raising attainment in literacy in Primary 3

Encouraging deeper learning: pupils creating surveys

Enabling Pupil Voice – using a Glow Survey

These additional links below are to Cookbooks which give further information about using Vokis:

Developing confident and independent learners

All Glow and no action? Pt 3 Vokis in a P6 Joint Literacy Project in Dumfries and Galloway

Space Mobiles – click to enlarge

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school. When it came to their topic work on Earth and Space, the P7 pupils at Coylton Primary School had lots of ideas about what they would like to learn about. Judith incorporated all of these ideas into the Glow Group she put together for the topic.

Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 1 (3:40)
Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries

Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 2 (2:45)
Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries

This fourth Cookbook on Judith’s Earth and Space Glow Group will focus on the use made of Picture Libraries in the Glow Group to showcase pupil work. Four further Cookbooks will look at reusing a Glow Group through a template; the use made of embedded YouTube and TeacherTube videos within the Glow Group; the use made of a wiki for pupil project work and lastly on the use of a survey for topic evaluation.

You will find links to the other Cookbooks on Coylton Primary’s Earth and Space Topic Glow Group below as and when they are written:

• Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic
• Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary
• Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary
• Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

Mission to Mars – click to enlarge

The pupils were keen to study Mars as part of their Earth and Space Topic. Judith devised an activity for them which would allow them to use links and videos within the Glow Group for research and then, in groups, to build their own Mars Rover. As part of the activity, they were asked to photograph it and upload this into the Glow Group. Judith had previously created a Picture Library web part to allow them to display their work. This allowed the pupils to return to their work at any point during the project. It also allowed them to log onto Glow from home and show their families the work they had been involved in. It also meant that the models could be dismantled and that there weren’t Mars Rovers cluttering up the classroom throughout the whole project! Judith also took photographs of the pupils working on the models and uploaded these to the Picture Library.

The Mars Rover Mission – click to enlarge

During the topic the children’s Art project was to make some space mobiles and they planned these out based on the information they had been learning in their topic. Once they had finished Judith took pictures of them and got them uploaded into another Picture Library. The mobiles could then go home with the pupils.

Space Mobiles – click to enlarge

Taking photographs of pupil work and uploading these images into a Picture Library web part means that a permanent record of evidence can be stored. It also means that images can be captured of more active learning taking place within the classroom. Pupils enjoy going back to the Glow Group to see their work over and over again. Precious space within the classroom has also been returned for future activities.

Ingredients

What did Judith need to do to be able to showcase pupil work within the Glow Group?

• A sub-group of the P7 Glow Group was created for the Earth and Space Topic.
• Pupils were set with Contributor membership of this Group.
• New Picture Library web parts were created and added to the Mars Mission and Space Mobiles pages.
• Pupils took photographs of their Mars Rovers and uploaded these into the Our Mars Rovers Picture Library.
• Judith took photographs of the pupils working on their Mars Rovers and uploaded these to the Picture Library.
• Judith took photographs of the pupils with their Space Mobiles and uploaded these to the Pictures of our Space Mobiles Picture Library.

Recipe

The videos below recreate the steps that Judith took to showcase pupil work in Picture Libraries in her Glow Group. It begins with a discussion on the logic of creating a new Picture Library.

Why you should create a new Picture Library (2:17)
Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries

How to create a new Picture Library (0:55)
Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries

How to add the new Picture Library web part to the page (1:09)
Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries

How pupils would add images to the Picture Library (0:58)
Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries

Impact

Judith Lennox

Judith explains how the pupils were “hooked-in” to Glow (0:29)
Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries
Brandon on why he likes Glow (0:29)
Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries

Brandon and Dana

Dana on why she likes Glow (0:23)
Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries

Our Planets Wiki – click to enlarge

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school. When it came to their topic work on Earth and Space, the P7 pupils at Coylton Primary School had lots of ideas about what they would like to learn about. Judith incorporated all of these ideas into the Glow Group she put together for the topic.
Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 1 (3:40)
Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary

Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 2 (2:45)
Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary

pupil news and web links – click to enlarge

The pupils were involved in the discussion about what they would study and what the Glow Group would focus on but this was put together by Judith herself. She was able to give over control to them in a few important areas: the first was a Pupil News web part where pupils could add their own news items that they had come across to share with the rest of the class; the second was a web links web part where each pupil could add links to websites they thought would be interesting to other pupils on the Earth and Space Topic. The third important area where pupils were given more control and responsibility in the Glow Group was the Our Planets Wiki. The class worked in groups to research different planets and then to populate a wiki page on each of the planets. At the time of this project Judith used wikispaces.com, however, she would now be able to use the wiki tool within Glow.

This third Cookbook on Judith’s Earth and Space Glow Group will focus on the use she made of a wiki tool. In the Recipe section, the how-to videos will show how to recreate this using Glow Wikis. Four further Cookbooks will look at reusing a Glow Group through a template; the use made of embedded YouTube and TeacherTube videos within the Glow Group; the use made of picture libraries within the Glow Group and lastly on the use of a survey for topic evaluation.

You will find links to the other Cookbooks on Coylton Primary’s Earth and Space Topic Glow Group below as and when they are written:

• Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic
• Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary
• Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries
• Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

Our Planets Wiki – click to enlarge

A wiki, originally from the Hawaiian for fast, can live up to its name in terms of creating space on the web. Groups of pupils can very quickly get started with creating their own web spaces without worrying about website design. They are perfect as a collaborative tool with lots of people able to edit the one area. Wikis are an incredibly flexible tool within the classroom. A wiki allows teachers to hand over responsibility to pupils to investigate a particular area. Pupils are often enthusiastic about adding their own stamp to the Glow Group in an area that they can control. They know their research in the individual groups is leading towards them controlling what goes into a particular area that is owned by them. It allowed Judith to have control of the Glow Group and exactly what she wanted in there and yet also to give over responsibility to the pupils for a particular area without changing permissions for the whole Glow Group. The pupils worked in small groups with a separate log on to wiki spaces for each group. Judith was able to see which group had edited which part and then protect the final product at the end.

Ingredients

What did Judith need to be able to allow her P7 pupils to have more authorship responsibility within the Earth and Space Glow Group?

• A class Glow Group for the Earth and Space Topic created as a sub-group of the class Glow Group
• Pupils set with Contributor permissions for the Glow Group
• a Pupil News web part
• a Pupil web links web part
• Judith took out a wikispaces.com free account and gave the pupils log-ins for this
• She also added a link to this wiki to the Noticeboard page of the Glow Group – however, to do this with a Glow Wiki she would need to have done the following:
  • add a Glow Wiki web part to the Noticeboard page
  • Create an Our Planets wiki – the pupils would then be able to get started straight away

Recipe

The videos below will allow you to recreate what Judith did with wikis using a Glow Wiki.

Creating the Our Planets Wiki (3:36)
Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary

Editing the front page of the Our Planets Wiki (3:59)
Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary

Creating the pages in the Our Planets Wiki (2:50)
Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary

Changing the Privacy Settings on the Our Planets Wiki (1:48)
Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary

Impact

Judith Lennox

Judith explains how the pupils were “hooked-in” to Glow (0:29)
Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary
Brandon on why he likes Glow (0:29)
Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary

Brandon and Dana

Dana on why she likes Glow (0:23)
Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary

Earth and Space Group – click to enlarge

Context

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school. When it came to their topic work on Earth and Space, the P7 pupils at Coylton Primary School had lots of ideas about what they would like to learn about.

Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 1 (3:40)

Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic

Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 2 (2:45)
Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic

Judith Lennox

She realised originally, when she came to speak to the P7 pupils the year before about what they were interested in doing for their topic, that this wouldn’t fit into the class Glow Group. She decided to make a sub-group of her class Glow Group for the Earth and Space topic. This allowed it to sit separately and self-contained in terms of organisation. The following year, she was able to use a template of this first Glow Group to set up a new Glow Group on Earth and Space. This meant that she was not starting from scratch when putting the content together for the topic. She saved the template and then used this to create a new Group but then edited it to fit in with what the children from the current year wanted to learn about. This meant that some of the content was able to be reused.

This first Cookbook on Judith’s work with her P7 pupils on their Earth and Space Project will focus on reusing a Glow Group by saving it as a template. This can be a difficult concept to get your head around. However, if you take your time and follow the instructions you will be able to do the same with one of your own Glow Groups.

Four further Cookbooks will look at the use of video within the Glow Group; the use made of a wiki within the Glow Group for pupils to present research; the use made of picture libraries within the Glow Group and lastly on the use of a survey for topic evaluation. As these Cookbooks are written they will be available from the links below:

• Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary
• Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary
• Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries
• Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

Ingredients

pupil news and web links – click to enlarge

There are several choices within different contexts for reusing Glow Groups. Everyone is busy and finding ways to make best use of previous work is a bonus. Some people choose to simply clear out discussion boards etc from the previous year and change over the membership of their Glow Group for the current class. In other cases people choose, mainly for class Glow Groups, to retain the membership for the original class and let them carry this with them as they get older. This would mean adding content to the Glow Group as is appropriate for the pupils as they move forward.

It is sometimes beneficial to teachers to retain what has been done in a previous year with a class and Glow as evidence. In this case they would want to recreate a similar Glow Group for use with the following year group. Teachers could also want various versions of their Glow Group available at the same time, for example in a secondary context. In both of these scenarios it is beneficial to save the original Glow Group as a template and use this to create further Glow Groups.

What did Judith need to do to be able to create a copy of the Glow Group she had been using with her previous P7 class?

• Access to a Site Collection Administrator account for the school
• To save the original Glow Group as a template as the Site Collection Administrator
• To create a new Glow Group from this template as the Site Collection Administrator
• To set Administrator membership up for her own Teacher Account as the Site Collection Administrator
• To edit the Glow Group for the current class of P7 pupils
• To set the current P7 pupils up with membership of the Glow Group

Recipe

Mars Mission

The videos below will take you through the process of saving your Glow Group as a template and then creating a new Group using this template. You will need to have a Site Collection Administrator account for your school. If you do not know what this is then it is worth asking a Glow Mentor within the school or a member of the senior management team.

How to save a previous Glow Group as a template (4:50)
Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic

How to create a new Glow Group using a template (4:35)
Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic

How to edit your Glow Group for use (3:27)
Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic

Impact

I was able to use a template [for the sub-Glow Group] of a Group I had used the previous year. I uploaded the template but then edited it to fit in with what the children this year wanted to learn about. So I was able to re-use some of the content and I was able to edit the rest that I wasn’t needing.

Judith explains why Earth and Space was a sub-group and why she used a template (0:55)
Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic

Brandon on why he likes Glow (0:29)
Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic

Dana on why she likes Glow (0:23)
Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic

You may find these Help Articles from the Glow Help Blog to be useful:

How to copy Glow Groups within an establishment site

How to copy Glow Groups between establishment sites

Earth and Space Topic Glow Group

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school. When it came to their topic work on Earth and Space, the P7 pupils at Coylton Primary School had lots of ideas about what they would like to learn about. Judith incorporated all of these ideas into the Glow Group she put together for the topic.

Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 1 (3:40)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

Judith’s Tour of the Earth and Space Glow Group Part 2 (2:45)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

This second Cookbook on Judith’s work with her P7 pupils on their Earth and Space Project will focus on the use of video. Four further Cookbooks will look at reusing a Glow Group through a template; the use made of a wiki within the Glow Group for pupils to present research; the use made of picture libraries within the Glow Group and lastly on the use of a survey for topic evaluation.

You will find links to the other Cookbooks on the Earth and Space Topic Glow Group below as they are written:

• Working with a Glow Group template for an Earth and Space Topic
• Our Planets Wiki at Coylton Primary
• Showcasing Pupil Work in Picture Libraries
• Using a survey for topic evaluation to enable pupil voice

Judith Lennox

Although they do so much more, sites like YouTube and TeacherTube can act as incredibly powerful search engines for rich, engaging and relevant content for learning and teaching. It is estimated that at least 20 hours of video is uploaded every minute to YouTube. When teachers can sift through and find gems of content to use then they can often create a context which provides pupils with a visual connection to a particular area of the curriculum. Concepts which can be particularly difficult to teach in the classroom, like gravity, can suddenly come to life with a couple of well chosen videos which can act as a bridge to understanding and a stimulus for discussion.

You Tube Animaniacs Videos

Glow is a perfect tool to be able to share these short videos with pupils. Videos can be embedded within the pages of a Glow Group and then used in the classroom on the whiteboard but then also used by pupils at home to consolidate their learning. Of course, some local authorities may have restricted YouTube so that videos from it cannot be used on the school network. Some local authorities restrict this for pupils but not for teachers. However, if teachers have embedded well-chosen videos into their Glow Groups, pupils should still be able to access these from home.

Judith felt that the videos worked extremely well in terms of “hooking” the pupils into the Glow Group and focussing their enthusiasm for their Earth and Space topic. This was the case with a couple of the Animaniacs videos which came from YouTube, Our Solar System Singalong and Yakko’s Universe song. Judith added these to the Noticeboard page of the Glow Group to set the scene for the pupils and the pupils wanted to return to them time and time again.

Videos in the Glow Group – click to enlarge

Further use was made of video on the Mars Rover page with the Mars Rover Animations videos, again from YouTube; the first moon landing on the Space Exploration page; both some instructional and some fun videos on the Gravity page; more TeacherTube videos on the Earth, Moon and Sun page and great NASA TeacherTube videos bringing in a health and wellbeing aspect on the Future Astronauts page.

Ingredients

Click to enlarge

What did Judith need to be able to embed videos in her Earth and Space Topic Glow Group?

• A Group created within Coylton Primary School with pupils set as members of any level
• Appropriate videos selected  from YouTube and TeacherTube
• embed codes copied from TeacherTube and YouTube for each video
• xml web parts added onto pages where videos are required
• embed codes added to xml web parts and titles of web parts changed to reflect the video content

Recipe

In the videos which follow we will recreate with one video what Judith did in the Earth and Space Glow Group to add videos to several pages.

How to find a video to use in your Glow Group and copy the embed code (2:48)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

How to add an xml web part (1:27)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

How to add the embed code (2:13)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

These are the links to the videos Judith used in her Glow Group:

YouTube Videos

• Animaniacs – Our Solar System singalong…
• Yakko’s Universe Song
• mars rover to mars holst the planets
• Mars Rover Blooper Reel
• First Moon Landing 1969
• Harry Discusses – Gravity
• Eureka! Episode 6 – Gravity
• I’m a Victim of Gravity

TeacherTube Videos

• TeacherTube Videos – Phases of the Moon
• TeacherTube Videos – What Causes Seasons on the Earth
• TeacherTube Videos – The Mystery of the Earth’s Tides
• TeacherTube Videos – Forceman Animation – Gravity
• TeacherTube Videos – NASA – Base Station Walk-Back
• TeacherTube Videos – NASA – Mission Control
• TeacherTube Videos – NASA - Crew Strength Training
• TeacherTube Videos – NASA - Do a Space Walk

Impact

Below you will find some videos where Judith talks about the impact of various aspects of the Earth and Space Topic Glow Group and also videos where pupils, Dana and Brandon talk about why they like Glow.

Judith explains how the pupils were “hooked-in” to Glow (0:29)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

Judith explains how she used videos and discussion boards to teach gravity (0:50)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

Judith speaks about the Mission to Mars Activities (1:05)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

The videos on the first page were little Animaniacs videos from YouTube that the children loved and insisted on watching just about every time we did the topic.

But it did grab their attention and it meant that they were interested and hooked-in to using Glow from the start.

Brandon on why he likes Glow (0:29)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

Dana on why she likes Glow (0:23)
Engaging videos in an Earth and Space Glow Group at Coylton Primary

Burns Supper at Coylton

Judith Lennox was P7 teacher at Coylton Primary School in South Ayrshire and is now DHT in the school.

Judith Lennox

Judith explains the Burns Supper Enterprise Project at Coylton Primary (0:53)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Primary 7 pupils at Coylton Primary School used a Glow Group to help in the planning of an interdisciplinary enterprise event. This event was the organising of their annual Burns Supper.

P7 pupils took responsibility for all aspects of planning this event, which involved:

• writing newsletters to parents
• inviting special guests
• selling tickets
• handling cash and cheques
• rehearsing songs, poems and dances
• writing and learning speeches
• publicising the event in the school community.

All 60 P7 pupils took on a role in organising the event, as well as having an ‘on the night’ job.

Glow Group Pages

Co-ordinating this number of pupils, from different classes, who were all completing different tasks, was made easier by the great idea of using a Glow Group for communication. This meant that pupils were able to communicate easily between the 2 classes by using various discussion boards, a moderated chat room and a Glow Meet room. The pupils made use of these both in and out of school. Using Glow enabled class teachers to oversee the planning process, whilst allowing pupils to work independently. It meant that the teachers didn’t have to keep bringing the 2 classes together and disrupting the school day. Teachers were able to answer queries as they arose and challenge pupils’ thinking by contibuting to the discussions in the Glow group.

The Coylton P7 Burns Supper

On the night, pupils chaired the event and provided high quality entertainment for their 90 guests.  After the event, pupils continued to use the Glow Group to celebrate their success. They were able to discuss their favourite memories and look at photos of the event which their teachers had uploaded.

Judith’s Tour of the Burn’s Supper Glow Group (3:14)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

This Cookbook will focus on the use of the Glow Group as a planning tool for the P7 classes.

Ingredients

What did Judith need to be able to allow the pupils to use Glow as a planning tool for their enterprise event?

• A Glow Group built at school level in Coylton Primary School
• Pupils from a both P7 classes set with Contributor permissions
• Use made of a general discussion board
• A Job Discussions page created
• Additional discussion boards created on this page to aid different teams of pupils in their planning
• A chat room
• A Glow Meet room
• A Page Viewer web part with the World Burns Club website
• An additional Page Viewer web part with Address to a Haggis
• A Memories page with photos and an additional discussion board for pupils to comment on the event

Recipe

Discussions in the Group

In this Cookbook we have chosen to focus on creating the Jobs Discussions page and additional discussion boards.

In the videos below you will be able to see how Judith did this.

How Judith created a new page in the Glow Group (1:47)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

How Judith created additional discussion web parts (2:47)

Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

How Judith added these web parts to the page (1:03)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Impact

Judith explains why she wanted to use Glow for the project (0:32)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Judith explains why she thinks using Glow was successful (0:49)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

The Burns project worked really well. The pupils were extremely enthusiastic. They had only just got their Glow log-ons and they were really keen to use Glow as much as possible. They were logging in at home quite a lot and also in school they were given a chance to log in whenever they had any free time.

The discussions worked really well. It was a good way for the pupils to collaborate without having to be in the same room as each other. Because it was 2 classes working together, it meant that we could do that without any disruption to the school day.

Brandon and Dana from P7

Brandon on why he likes Glow (0:29)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Dana on why she likes Glow (0:23)
Burns Supper – Using Glow to support an Enterprise Project

Building the Curriculum 5

From the recommendations contained within Building the Curriculum 5 Jennifer Richardson then South Ayrshire’s Curriculum for Excellence Assessment Team Development Officer, had decided to initiate a pilot project to use Glow to help schools meet the requirements. The documentation states that,

“children and young people should agree learning goals and should record them in ways that are meaningful and relevant.”

It also calls for the creation of a Learner Profile which should include targets and goals with information on all areas of the curriculum and wider achievement and a range of evidence of learning. It states that learners should have opportunities for reflection, sharing and dialogue.  Maintaining an electronic portfolio within Glow could provide schools and pupils with the ongoing information required for a Profile.

In this cookbook we will focus on work done in Barr Primary School in South Ayrshire as part of this pilot process.

Originally South Ayrshire were interested in some work done in East Ayrshire using Glow Groups as e-portfolios. However, since their introduction in the summer of 2010, Glow blogs have become an increasingly important tool within Glow. It quickly became obvious that they would be an excellent opportunity to provide an e-portfolio solution which would have many advantages over using a Glow Group.

Jennifer was originally keen to go ahead with using Glow blogs for this purpose as she saw the following benefits:

• they provide an accessible, electronic and manageable method of storing different types of evidence in one central place
• it can be accessed by both the learner, teachers, parents and peers (optional)
• learners can independently access and update their e-portfolio at any time and from anywhere with an internet connection
• teachers, parents and peers could comment on the learners work
• the e-portfolio can automatically transfer with the learner from class to class and from primary to secondary school.

Nation e-portfolio Glow Group

National advice and access to templates and helpsheets is available from the National level Glow Group here. The advice is given that the e-portfolios are created in a Glow Group in the pupil’s My Glow area. The My Glow area is chosen so that the pupils can have more ownership of the process but also because as the pupil moves to secondary school, if they are correctly identity matched to the same account, then they retain their My Glow and any groups within it. Rather than simply creating the blog on their My Glow it is created in a Glow Group so that membership can be set for teachers in the Glow Group without giving access to the pupil’s My Glow area. When a pupil enters secondary school membership can be reset for all teaching staff for the secondary in the way it was originally set at the primary.

Context

Barr Primary

In South Ayrshire we decided to build a template for schools to use, although local authorities are now able to work with the National Team to design a ‘Theme’ which can be used across the whole authority. Towards the end of 2010 South Ayrshire asked for volunteer schools to come along to a twilight training session. Both primaries and secondaries were keen to be involved. Fraser Baird came along from Barr Primary to find out how to get started with his pupils and kicked the process off with them when he returned to school.

Barr Primary School

Barr Primary were initially keen to use Glow Groups for e-portfolios and had already got started with doing this but then opted to give the Glow blogs a try instead. They began with creating them with the senior pupils in P5-7 but then set them up with the junior pupils as well. All pupils in P1-7 at Barr Primary have their own Glow blog to use for an e-portfolio.

To put the project in context click below to see Brian from Barr Primary take you on a tour through his e-portfolio blog:
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Ingredients

The prcess the South Ayrshire schools went through to create the e-portfolios was as follows:

• Pupils created a Glow Group with their own name as a title in their My Glow Area using the Glow Light interface.
• They added this Glow Group to their favourites.
• The pupils used the Advanced Settings link to add staff as Administrators of their Glow Group.
• They added the Glow Blog web part to the Glow Group
• They created a Glow blog, naming it with their Glow username, in order to keep the blog name unique.
• The pupils applied a template to their blog but this would now be done by adding a theme decided on by the local authority
• The pupils created their own header for the blog.
• A Glow Group was created by their teacher at school level.
• Pupils copied the URL for their blog and added this to a web links web part in the school-level Glow Group.

Recipe

If you go to the National E-Portfolio Glow Group mentioned above you will see videos and Helpsheets taking you through all the stages required for schools to set up e-portfolio with their pupils.

Brian shows us how pupils access their e-portfolios to make a post (1:22)

e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Brian shows us how to move from the dashboard to the e-portfolio (0:20)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Impact

The senior pupils at Barr Primary School

Barr Primary are very pleased with how the e-portfolio pilot is progressing and the pupils appear to really enjoy this way of working. They were generous enough with their time to let me go into the school and film their opinions on using their e-portfolios. Click on the videos in the sections below to find out what firstly, the pupils thought of various aspects and then what their teacher, Fraser Baird thought:

Introductions to the pupils (0:39)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

The pupils on creating the e-portfolios (0:51)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on why they’re using the e-portfolios (1:37)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on what they post on (2:04)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on using your blog as an evidence store (1:05)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on how to post (1:37)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on using vokis on the blogs (0:52)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on using it from home (0:30)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on getting comments from teachers (0:32)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on the decision to use blogs (1:13)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on getting started (1:27)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on e-portfolio for measuring pupil progression (1:09)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on the advantages of blogs over traditional methods (0:49)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on the pupils and blogs (2:21)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on what and how often the pupils post (1:05)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Kerry Malcolm

Kerry Malcolm is P1-4 teacher at Fisherton Primary School. Her 09-10 class had 22 pupils. Kerry received an hour’s introductory training session from a Glow Mentor. Being quite computer literate to start off with Kerry immediately saw the potential within Glow for the pupils to enjoy using it and to expand learning in her classroom. She was keen that Glow would encourage pupils to be more involved in their own learning and help them become more independent learners. She notes that working in a multi-composite class there is always the challenge of gaining more time to work with pupils and ensuring that they are always focussed and on-task. She could see that using Glow would help achieve this.

Click here to enlarge

There are 2 Cookbooks available on Fisherton Primary’s use of Glow. You will find one on their use of Glow Chat for Book Detectives here – Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary.

In this cookbook, we will find out:
• What the Fisherton Primary P1-4 Glow Group looks like
• How Kerry made use of a page in the Glow Group for Learning Zone information

Context

Click here to enlarge

Kerry was discovering at parents’ meetings that the parents really weren’t very sure about what was going on in their child’s class and with their learning. Being a parent herself, she knows it is hard to get information from your own child about what they are learning in school. Although the Fisherton parents don’t yet have Glow log-ins, the school are about to set up a parent workshop on Glow. In this workshop they will explain what it is and how the pupils are using it in class.

She knows the pupils are accessing Glow at home and the parents will see this but feels the parents are still a bit baffled by Glow. To help combat this Kerry has also set up a Learning Zone page in Glow so that the parents would have an idea of what is going on in school. The school does send out a termly newsletter stating what the pupils are going to be learning that term. However, Kerry though that using web parts on a page in Glow would allow the facility of breaking this information down and being able to share it with parents through their child logging on to Glow from home. Parents are able to become, as Kerry puts it, “co-educators”. They can ask questions of their child about what’s on the Learning Zone page and help with homework.

To decide what goes into the Learning Zone Kerry will have a look at her Forward Plans and work out what they’re going to be doing for the next month. She will then put this into more ‘child-friendly’ language. The pupils then use this space as a guide for what will be coming up next and will often discuss what’s coming up with Kerry in the classroom. They are then more motivated and involved in their own learning themselves. It helps them know what is coming up and what to prepare for.

Kerry was given some time out of class for a one-to-one introduction of Glow to every pupil. She did some more focussed training with a particular P6 pupil who supports their own P5-7 teacher and class with Glow and also occasionally gives support to the P1-4 class. Pupils had home access right from the start of using Glow although not all pupils are able to access it from home. The pupils were encouraged to keep their Glow username and password in their homework diaries and this has worked well.

Ingredients

The Learning Zone page

Image web part

At the top of the page is an image web part to set the scene and make the page more attractive for the pupils and their parents

Learning Zone text editor web part

Click here to enlarge

This contains bold text to invite parents and pupils to check out the learning intentions for the coming month

Text editor web parts for Maths and Language

Click here to enlarge

These web parts are divided into a colour coded section for each year to give information for what’s coming up. At the start of term, at the moment, they have yet to be filled with the learning intentions.

Text editor web parts for Health and Wellbeing and Social Subjects

Click here to enlarge

The topic for the coming months will be listed in each of these web parts.

What did Kerry need to do to allow her class Glow Group to act as a hub for the P1-4 pupils?

• A Glow Group built at school level
• Set Contributor membership for all the pupils in the class
• Create a new page for the Learning Zone
• Add an image web part with an image to the top of the page
• Add 5 text editor web parts to contain information

Recipe

The first two videos below act as a virtual tour by Kerry of the Fisherton Primary School P1-4 Glow Group. Please note that the audio for this tour was recorded before the end of the 2009/2010 session but the video to go along with it was recorded at the start of the 2010/2011 session. As a result some of the aspects that Kerry describes for a page have been slightly changed for the start of the new term. The videos that then follow show how the elements within the Learning Zone page can be recreated. Details are:

Tour of the Group Part 1 (5:14)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Tour of the Group Part 2 (5:09)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Creating a new page in the Glow Group (1:14)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Adding an image web part to the page (4:49)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Adding the 5 text editor web parts to the page (1:24)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Changing the titles of the web parts (1:40)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Adding information to the text editor web parts (5:03)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Impact

Click here to enlarge

Kerry feels that sharing the Learning Zone page through pupils logging onto Glow with their parents from home allows the parents to participate in their child’s learning. Kerry is keen to get parents set up with their own log-ons for Glow and to this end she will be setting up a parents workshop on Glow in the near future.

Kerry speaks about the Learning Zone (2:26)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Laurel, Heather, Roisin and Emily speak about using Glow at Fisherton (2:14)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Laurel, Heather, Roisin and Emily talk about the Learning Zone page (0:38)
Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents

Kerry Malcolm

Kerry Malcolm is P1-4 teacher at Fisherton Primary School. Her 09-10 class had 22 pupils. Kerry received an hour’s introductory training session from a Glow Mentor. Being quite computer literate to start off with Kerry immediately saw the potential within Glow for the pupils to enjoy using it and to expand learning in her classroom. She was keen that Glow would encourage pupils to be more involved in their own learning and help them become more independent learners. She notes that working in a multi-composite class there is always the challenge of gaining more time to work with pupils and ensuring that they are always focussed and on-task. She could see that using Glow would help achieve this.

click to enlarge

There are 2 Cookbooks available on Fisherton Primary’s use of Glow. You will find a link to a Cookbook on their use of Glow for a Learning Zone page – Sharing Learning Intentions with pupils and parents at Fisherton Primary.

In this cookbook, we will find out:
• What the Fisherton Primary P1-4 Glow Group looks like
• How Kerry made use of Glow Chat with the pupils for the Book Detectives programme

Context

click to enlarge

Kerry decided to create a Book Detectives page within her Glow Group. (Click here to access the Aberdeenshire Council’s Building Bridges Report with Appendix 2 giving information about the Book Detectives approach AberdeenshireBuildingBridges_tcm4-200039). Having a multi-composite class means many small reading groups within the class and anything Kerry can do to encourage independence in the pupils’ learning means more time on-task. She set it up so that older and more able pupils would be able to do paired reading together and then use the exciting medium of the Chat Room in Glow to go off and ask each other questions on the book. Kerry would then have evidence that the pupils had understood what they were reading from transcripts available with Glow Chat.

With reluctant readers Kerry is able to build in peer assessment to the activity. Kerry pairs up more able and less able pupils. Their access to the Chat Rooms is un-moderated within Glow and Kerry feels this builds responsibility and ownership of their own learning. The pupils are always aware that Kerry can get a transcript of the chat session. As the pupils are asked not to close down the chat room until she has seen it, she is able to quickly verify that they have read the book and understood it and all taken a turn at answering. To spice things up and keep the pupils motivated Kerry will introduce different challenges and stop watches with the Question Master keeping score.

There are 5 computers available in Kerry’s classroom for the pupils to work on Glow. Kerry was given some time out of class for a one-to-one introduction of Glow to every pupil. She did some more focussed training with a particular P6 pupil who supports their own P5-7 teacher and class with Glow and also occasionally gives support to the P1-4 class. Pupils had home access right from the start of using Glow although not all pupils are able to access it from home.

Ingredients

Book Detectives text editor web part

click to enlarge

The page contains a text editor web part which holds the instructions for the pupils for the Book Detectives activity using Glow Chat.

Glow Chat web part

click to enlarge

Kerry has brought a Glow Chat web part onto the page and created a chat room for the pupils to complete their Book Detectives Activity.

What did Kerry need to do to allow her class Glow Group to act as a hub for the P1-4 pupils?

• A Glow Group built at school level
• Set Contributor membership for all the pupils in the class
• Create a new page for the Book Detectives
• Add a text editor web part to contain the instructions for the pupils
• Add a Glow Chat web part
• Create a Glow Chat room for the Book Detectives work

Recipe

The first two videos below act as a virtual tour by Kerry of the Fisherton Primary School P1-4 Glow Group. Please note that the audio for this tour was recorded before the end of the 2009/2010 session but the video to go along with it was recorded at the start of the 2010/2011 session. As a result some of the aspects that Kerry describes for a page have been slightly changed for the start of the new term. The videos that then follow show how the elements within the Learning Zone page can be recreated. Details are:

Tour of the Group Part 1 (5:14)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary

Tour of the Group Part 2 (5:09)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary

Creating a new page in the Glow Group (1:17)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary

Adding a text editor web part with instructions (2:51)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary

Bringing the Glow Chat web part onto the page (1:19)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary

Creating a Glow Chat Room (3:25)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary

How pupils would join the Chat room (2:27)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary

Impact

click to enlarge

The pupils really enjoy using the Chat Rooms in Glow. In particular with boys in the class, who Kerry finds don’t particularly enjoy working on comprehension, the partnership of the Book Detectives approach and Glow can add a competitive element to the task. They compete for who is Question Master and then compete for who can answer the question first once it is asked. She feels it works particularly well with this group who are perhaps reluctant readers and not keen to pick up pen and paper and answer in sentences about comprehension. She feels that because they enjoy the competitive element of it so much that they don’t realise they’re doing comprehension work at all and they are motivated to read carefully for meaning. They clearly revel in the self-directed nature of this learning. The pupils use a similar method for quick quiz work in Maths, having a Question Master and also make use of a separate chat room.

Kerry speaks about Book Detectives (2:04)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary

Laurel, Heather, Roisin and Emily speak about using Glow at Fisherton (2:14)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary

Laurel, Heather, Roisin and Emily talk about using Glow for Book Detectives (1:31)
Using a Glow Chat for Book Detectives work at Fisherton Primary